Hidden Structures
by tofsla
Summary: 10 years after the war, Snape and Harry reach a kind of understanding. Smut with hand kink.


Ten years after the war, Severus Snape's life is quite orderly and more satisfactory than he could ever have expected. Certainly, he had imagined that he might be retired from the classroom by now, but this compromise is more than acceptable: NEWT classes only, a blessed release from playing surrogate mother to seventy Slytherins, and a small research stipend from the Ministry. His own rooms at Hogwarts, no need to worry about the bothersome business that is feeding oneself every damned day, and a note from St Mungo's explaining that he really ought not, given his delicate condition, be subjected to undue stress.

The note has worked for more or less everything so far, except, regrettably, vetoing the appointment of one Harry Potter as junior Defence professor. (McGonagall, too damn amused by half; "well really, Severus, I would like to imagine that members of my staff are able to conduct themselves as professional adults. You may not like Harry, but as you have yet to show signs of liking anyone in this castle you will forgive me if I do not give your objections much weight.") 

* * *

Potter is not what he remembers, or else Severus is not who he was. It is—different. Strange, this adult who has specialised skills and informed opinions, who has been heard, on occasion, to laugh when Severus makes a joke. They sit together in the staff room and plan lessons and do not talk about all those other times and it is—almost—companionable. (Potter, leaning against his shoulder to see a book, a hand casually placed on Severus' arm as though Potter has no idea that it's there; "to be honest, I thought that one was complete crap—look at the description of the Imperius curse, it's just sensationalist bullshit.")

Which is not to say they don't fight. Over scheduling, over the proper state in which to leave a classroom, over theory, over marking. Over how strong a cup of tea should be. But it is not—it is—

He does not know what it is. (He knows. It is—) 

* * *

He has his weaknesses.

Even at twenty-seven, Potter's hands are a mess; bitten nails, chewed skin, usually stained with ink or grass, always calloused. A little scarred, faint silver lines that were words once, scratches from animals, scratches from encounters with particularly vicious pot-plants. An old cut straight across the palm of one hand that speaks of nothing good at all, though who knows what the details may be. His fingers are short and broad, their appearance entirely inelegant. These are hands that clutch when they ought to coax, that upend inkwells and break quill-tips, crumple paper and parchment as soon as they touch it. They are deft enough to catch a snitch, but rarely without crushing its wings. They are incurably untidy.

Severus wants them, desperately. Irrationally. It is- it is entirely ridiculous. Inappropriate.

It is overwhelming.

Those hands are curled into fists now, one of them convulsed around what must be the remains of the schedule for use of the Quidditch pitch. White-knuckled. On the half-visible pad of his thumb is a purple splotch from-what? Blackberries. The brambles near the main gate, perhaps.

"-which you knew!" Potter is shouting. "We agreed! Are you enjoying this, you git? Do you get off on making my life difficult?"

Severus' lips are pressed thinly together. He is in fact, damningly, half hard.

"Potter," he snarls, "I find myself entirely uninterested in discussing either scheduling clashes or my personal inclinations in a corridor. Get inside or go away and complain to someone who cares. I'm sure you need only say the word and our dear headmistress will bend over backwards to favour your precious team. Goodness knows she's been doing it well enough for the past fifty years without your help."

Potter falters. "That's not," he says, stops. "Oh, for fuck's sake," he says.

Pushes past Severus and into the office.

Severus shuts the door behind him with more force than could possibly be considered necessary, and is satisfied when Potter flinches slightly at the heavy noise.

But Potter seems to have shouted himself out, which is obscurely disappointing. He looks quite calm, leans against Severus' desk as though he had every right to be there, left hand curling on the edge, his weight resting heavily on the palm. "Sorry," he says. "That was," a pause, as though he's searching for the word he wants, "unprofessional."

Severus sneers. Does not stare at the press of Potter's fingers against his poor desk, the way his thumb strokes obscenely against the wood. Later he will sit at his desk and stare at the spot, imagine that some mark has been left. But not now, he cannot, must not, does not imagine- "I'm astonished that you know the meaning of the word."

Harry 'I'm best friends with all my students' Potter flushes, very faintly. "Shut up. Look, it's just that this really is inconvenient. Your students aren't the only ones who're in other clubs, you know. You can't just alter my bookings for me."

"Apparently," Severus says, with some satisfaction, "I actually can."

"You're impossible," Potter snaps, voice beginning to rise again. He really is easy. "Fine, you can! You can make everyone's lives a misery and do whatever you like and feel secure in the knowledge that none of us want to bother Minerva while she's worrying about twelve different disasters at once! You're free to be exactly as much of a bastard as everyone always said you were, and I hope it makes you bloody happy. But that doesn't mean I have to like it," he says. "And that doesn't mean I'm above being a bastard right back either."

"Unconvincing, Potter," Severus says. "You have to mean it."

Potter chokes out a disbelieving laugh. But there is a shadow that flits across his face. What...? Oh.

"Give that here," Severus adds, ignoring the weight of the association, and reaches out to snatch the schedule from Potter's suddenly loosened fingers. Suppresses the secret thrill of brushing his hand against Potter's. He thinks, though, that Potter flinches again at his touch.

"Fuck," Potter says. "You bastard. You- this isn't-" he shakes his head; he doesn't seem to have a clue what it is he wants to say.

Severus gives him a cool look. "What?"

"I don't," Potter says. "I can't," Potter says. "This is so stupid," Potter says, and, "I was just going to- but it won't- you're always so- I have to go."

Severus catches his arm. "You were just going to _what_?"

Potter stares at him, wide-eyed, wild-eyed, like a trapped animal. He doesn't look, in that moment, completely sane. "I don't remember," he says in a desperate voice. "I want-"

"What-"

"You. Oh, fuck. Fuck. I want you and you're such a bastard, I must be sick, I-"

Severus, who is perfectly controlled, who has kept his emotions locked in a metaphorical fallout shelter for the last thirty years, who meets the world with perfectly vindictive calm or with icy fury and hardly ever with anything else, is helpless to do anything but kiss him.

Harry Potter gasps against his lips, a sound that is close to a sob. His hands make fists again, buried in Severus' robes, disturbing the orderly fall of black fabric. 

* * *

Severus Snape, on his knees as he swore he never would be again, bows his head like a muggle in a church, like a ridiculous romantic painting of a knight before his lord—Potter, who lays a trembling hand upon his head like a mockery of a benediction. Who draws a sharp breath as Severus pulls away, brings that hand down to his mouth, clasped carefully between his long, bony fingers with a strange reverence. Severus, who waits to be laughed at, to be given a reason to rebuild his defences and shut himself away.

Potter does not laugh. Severus is damned.

"Let me," Severus says, and means for it to have the sharpness of a command.

It does not.

"Please," Harry Potter says. As though this were a favour Severus might grant him. As though—

"I suppose," Severus says. His voice catches. "Since you—ask so nicely—"

He turns Potter's hand, presses his mouth to the palm. His fingers curl around Potter's wrist, bone and tendon shifting under his hand as Potter tenses, his thumb grazing across the vein, feeling Potter's pulse racing, a frantic thrumming to match his own.

"Your mouth," Potter gasps, "I've thought so much about—I want—"

Severus does not answer, but licks a long stripe across Potter's palm, life and fortune and scar-tissue, callouses from flying, presses a biting kiss to the pad of the thumb—thinks distantly, yes, blackberries. Potter watches, tenses and relaxes and tenses again, gasps. Lets Severus do what he wants. What he wants is—yes, why not—Potter in his mouth.

Index finger, middle finger. He presses them to his lips, and when Potter understands he groans, pushes them forward. Distal phalanges, intermediate, proximal. Severus sucks them in, curls his tongue around them. Let Potter think it is a demonstration or a promise,_ imagine how it'll feel when it's your cock_. For Severus it is—

"Oh, god," Potter says, "you," and falls on splayed knees before Severus on the cold stone floor, face flushed, staring at Severus' mouth wrapped around Potter's own fingers. Potter's free hand is pressing urgently between his own legs, the heel of his palm grinding against his cock through his trousers, fingers flexing helplessly, and Severus cannot watch, cannot think about metacarpals under taut skin, of pale veins, of the slight trembling of Potter's fingers—it is enough to make him come, just this, Potter's desperation and awkward careless strength and—

Potter bites down on a cry, wordless, hopeless. His body jerks, abruptly, an abortive movement that is not on its way anywhere; Severus feels it through Potter's arm, opens his eyes to see Potter's face in orgasm, mouth open and slack, eyes lidded. 

* * *

"Don't think," Potter says, later, breathless against his shoulder, "that this means I've forgotten about the schedule."

"What schedule," Severus mutters. But he can't think of a single more reassuring thing that Potter could have said.


End file.
